[From the Political-Organisational Report of the Sixth Party Congress.]

The dalit question has emerged as a major question, particularly
with the phenomenal rise of BSP. The BSP, after a good beginning in Punjab,
registered a steep rise in UP, spread to MP and some other states. At one point
of time it appeared set to take Andhra by storm and there it got a sympathetic
response from various Naxalite factions. Radicals exempted them from their ban
on conducting election propaganda in areas of their influence, a certain ML
faction declared their open support to BSP in the elections, some ex-PWG
stalwarts even joined BSP and a prominent ideologue even credited Kanshi Ram
with correctly applying Marxism-Leninism and Mao's Thought to Indian conditions!
This is how the so-called dalit discourse entered the ML movement and sought to
transform the class parameters of the movement.

Our Party firmly opposed these deviations and upheld the Marxist viewpoint
that expanding the frontiers of class struggle can be the only point of
departure for Marxists while they undertake class struggles against caste
oppression and for the social equality of dalits. The Kanshi Rams take up these
issues on the premise of negation of class struggle and ultimately end up
preaching class peace and becoming part and parcel of the ruling elite. In areas
of Bihar where dalit movements for social dignity and equality have become a
part of the class struggle of the rural poor, BSP elements were truly exposed.
They were found hobnobbing with Ranvir Sena, and subsequently the BSP itself
made common cause with the feudal-Brahminical party, the BJP, in Uttar Pradesh.
In Bihar we successfully prevented the intrusion of BSP into our areas of
struggle, and in Uttar Pradesh we have taken up the challenge of restoring the
old left bases of CPI which were swept away by BSP, back to the Left fold.

The BSP's flirting with the Congress and the BJP and its consistent anti-Left
attitude has helped remove illusions in progressive intellectual circles
including among dalit intellectual circles. It still, however, enjoys
considerable support among dalit peasantry and dalit petty-bourgeois sections in
Uttar Pradesh. Mayawati's stint in power and her symbolic acts like the Ambedkar
Village scheme, installing statues of proponents of dalit liberation, renaming
districts etc. after Ambedkar and others revered by dalit communities have stood
her in good stead. In Punjab, the BSP developed a totally opportunistic alliance
with the Akalis, a party of kulaks and reaped a good harvest in parliamentary
elections, but in assembly elections when it contested alone it came a cropper.

In UP too the BSP faces problems in keeping its flock of MLAs together. Many
of them were drawn to BSP from other parties -- and interestingly a good many of
them are from upper castes -- just by the opportunity to cash in on its dalit
vote bank, which Kanshi Ram traded with impunity. This is why the party insisted
-- even though it had to finally back out -- on its demand for having one of its
own men as the Speaker with the passing of the reins of chief ministership from
Mayawati to Kalyan Singh. In spite of its subsequent withdrawal of support, the
BJP has succeded in luring away at least a dozen BSP MLAs. The BSP's forays into
Southern, Western and Eastern India have so far failed to deliver.

The BSP at the grassroots level has developed a desire among the dalit castes
for dignity, equality and share in political power. At the top, however, it
developed a class of dalit elites who make a vulgar display of wealth and lead a
decadent bourgeois life. The ultimate destiny of the BSP, which essentially
represents the class interests of the above-mentioned dalit elites and the petty
bourgeoisie, is absorption by the BJP or Congress(I). But the heightened
consciousness of the broad dalit masses can definitely be mobilised under the
red banner for wages, land, social dignity and political emancipation.

The dalit movement is in the process of reorganisation in Maharashtra, where
the dalit outburst after the desecration of Ambedkar's statue didn't even spare
established dalit leaders who had degenerated. A calculated move has been
witnessed in recent times to denigrate Ambedkar and project him as having been
opposed to Indian freedom. Of late, Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party too has
started attacking Ambedkar. Meanwhile the BJP is seeking to appropriate Ambedkar
for its communal ends. We must oppose these moves. In socio-economic terms,
Ambedkar was much more radical than Gandhi, and even Nehru. Politically too, he
was more conscious of the complexities of nation-building in India. Rather than
trying to project himself as a national leader at the expense of everything
else, he made a strong plea for making dalit emancipation an integral part of
the freedom movement. And this is a question which India is struggling with even
fifty years after independence.

The dalit question in the present context cannot be simply viewed as confined
to dalit vs. Brahminical upper castes. Rising kulaks from among upwardly mobile
intermediate castes, too, indulge in dalit bashing in order to scuttle the
demand of the agricultural workers and poor peasants for wages and land.

In Tamil Nadu, widespread caste clashes in the southern districts between
dalits and Thevars (a backward caste) with the state machinery openly siding
with the Thevars, is an important reflection of this phenomenon. This phenomenon
is also becoming pronounced in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Mulayam's demand for the
scrapping of the central act on preventing atrocities on dalits emanates from
the same standpoint.

We tried to organise a Dalit Mahasabha in UP in order to actively intervene
in the dalit discourse vis-a-vis BSP. This proved a non-starter and subsequently
we decided to abandon this project. The correct policy would be to unite with
radical dalit organisations and interact with progressive intellectual circles
such as proponents of 'dalit literature'. In Tamil Nadu we recently organised a
convention in Tirunelveli against atrocities on dalits and developed a close
rapport with militant dalit organisations. We must however be on guard against
infiltration of dalitist ideas in our organisation.